new laptop or Ipad or something?

[mbday630]

Hubby spilled water on his laptop and now it won't start up. He ONLY uses his laptop to read his mail and look at the news. sometimes people will send him a picture and he opens it up and looks at it and then deletes everything, so, nothing is stored on the hard drive. Instead of a new laptop (we are keeping our fingers crosses that in a few days this one will start up again though) should we get an IPad or something like that? He doesn't play games or need a lot of memory. Just his mail and if the kids send him pictures. A laptop seems like a waste, I am sort of thinking.

[middletoe]

Does he ever answer the emails or send messages? If so, he needs something with a keyboard. There is a Bluetooth keyboard that you can get for the iPad, but it isn't a full size keyboard. Before purchasing one, he should try one out in a store. An iPad would probably be more expensive than a low end laptop.

[mbday630]

I didn't know that you couldn't answer emails on an IPad. He seldom writes people as he never learned to type - it is a one finger job. what we have now for him is just a 300 dollar low-end laptop and I guess that would probably be the best thing again. And to keep him from drinking water near his laptop!

[mbday630]

In trying to get his laptop going tonight, I told him to restart it and press F8 continuously in the hopes of it going to safe mode. well, his laptop doesn't have the F keys at top so I told him to plug in one of my keyboards to his laptop. That didn't work either but is it because the laptop doesn't recognize the keyboard from the plug-in?

[Phlebas]

You can write emails on an iPad or an Android tablet - it's just that unless you have an external keyboard you'll be using a 'keyboard' on the touchscreen, which is fine for short messages but an absolute pain for anything longer. As middletoe says, an iPad is likely to be more expensive than the kind of laptop you'd need just for mail and news - you may well be able to find a cheaper Android tablet that will do the job, though. Do try before you buy if at all possible.

When you say plugging in the external keyboard didn't work, what exactly happened? Does it get as far as telling you Windows is starting up, and then something goes wrong?

[draclvr]

If you are looking for a tablet, then there are quite a few that have keyboards. If you want to stay with the Windows operating system, ASUS makes some very nice affordable tablets that come with a keyboard. Microsoft makes the Surface which is a excellent tablet, but they are a bit pricey unless you look at the Surface 3. Acer also makes Windows tablets with keyboards. Rosaboobie just bought one of the high end Surface tablets and she can even do all her gaming on hers. Winfrey also got a Surface and really likes it. I have an older Surface and wouldn't be without it when I am traveling. If you think learning a new operating system wouldn't be a problem for him, the the iPad or an Android tablet would work... as Phlebas says, doing some typing on the on-screen keyboards is OK, but a pain for anything else, so see if he would prefer a separate keyboard. His advice to try first is also excellent.

ASUS tablets with keyboards

Acer tablets with keyboards

Surface tablets

And I almost forgot the Chromebooks! They are very inexpensive and lots of people like them - they use the Chrome operating system which I don't know anything about. Many schools are using them because they are so cheap. One popped up in my sale email this morning.

Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga Chromebook

And another Lenovo which was in my sale email this morning - this one is the Windows OS.

Lenovo Thinkpad Miix

You can also keep your eye out for good laptops. I've had several come across my email the last week or so for less than $400.

[mbday630]

Thanks for the links. I will show them to hubby. He said that we are going to wait a few more days to see if the laptop dries out (doubt it) and it works. When he tries to start it up now, the capslock key is always on and he was wondering about that. That is why I asked him to plug in my keyboard to see if it over-rode the keyboard on the laptop. Well, if nothing else, lesson learned. No water near laptops!

[RaytheBear]

Water on the Laptop: That happened to my daughter and what we did is, I held the laptop *upside down and I told her to use a Hair dryer while I held it, do not get too close but close enough to dry out the remaining water/dampness from the keyboard, etc. and lucky enough, it worked.

As for hubby drinking water... What I do is I buy a bottle of Gatorade which I do not like, too sweet for me, but it is a Good solid plastic bottle and I clean it out and then put water in it, stick it in the fridge and when I go on my laptop, the water is cold and when I reach for water, NO Danger of spillage because it is closed with a cap, I then take the bottle, back away from the lappy , remove the cap and drink away.

*Why upside down? If there is still water remaining, you want the water to drip towards the keyboard making it easier to dry out.